Is Suomalaisuuden liitto a narrow-minded, hate-mongering, one-sided association that spreads hatred of minorities?

Perussuomalaiset (PS) Euro MP Sampo Terho, who is also the chairman of Association of Finnish Culture and Identity (Suomalaisuuden liitto), claims in a recent blog entry that his association has been the target of vicious attacks by the media, which have accused it of being narrow-minded, hate-mongering, one-sided association that spreads hatred of minorities.

Surisingly, Terho claims that such criticism of his association is synonymous with hate speech.

If we are serious and critically honest with ourselves, it’s Suomalaisuuden liitto that has spearheaded a vicious campaign against Finland’s second official language, Swedish, and done everything possible to hinder the rightful acceptance and respect of our cultural diversity.

What kind of an association is Suomalaisuuden liitto? How many non-white Finns does it have on its board? Does it ever speak of cultural diversity without seeing it as a threat to this country?

Associations like Suomalaisuuden liitto bear a striking resemblance to Don Quixote. Just like the Spanish literary hero of the early seventeenth century who attacked windmills, associations like Suomalaisuuden liitto can deny our cultural diversity for as long as they wish by not recognizing or demonizing it as something “them” and “foreign.” They can do this but not forever.

A warning to Suomalaisuuden liitto: If you don’t care to grasp that we are, and have always been, a culturally diverse society, it is you that will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

In order to understand the dynamics of intolerance in Finland and elsewhere, speaking just of racism is one matter. Cultural diversity is the real issue, which is the well from which intolerance springs.